A change took place, demonstrated by comparison of an early and a late tenth century example. The first, from the Somesvara at Mukhalingam, is unique in including the River Gahga" on her makara as an attendant on the right. In this context, the ascetic on the opposite side should probably be identified as Bhagiratha, and the whole as an allusion to the Descent of the Ganges. The jar that Siva holds in other images as well may here refer specifically to the gift of water. Likewise, his Ekapada form evokes the image of an ascetic standing on one leg, Siva himself the arch ascetic, resembling the form in which Bhagiratha is represented in other areas. The sculptor would thus seem to have given an individual, narrative twist to a broader iconographic type in the same way that he has enriched the design of the wall with enframing figures similar in scale to Ekapada's attendants.
At Kundes'vara, however, the divinity was conceived to be fiercer, and this remained generally true from the late tenth century on. Fangs are pronounced, a body appears underfoot, and the hourglass drum in the upper hand suggests destruction. The dramatically cutout back¬ground and the elaborate curves of the attendants, both general features of later Orissan sculpture serve here to highlight the stasis of the central figure. Skulls form a delicately haunting garland, and snakes a yaj-nopavita, while yet another serpent calls attention to the single ankle. With added thickness Ekapada presses down like a mighty pestle grinding the corpse beneath. Form and particular content are powerfully inseparable, a truism too often lost sight of in discussions of an iconographic type. A similar fierce figure appears in the Yogini Temple" at Hirapur, and it would seem that the Tantric cults of the tenth century reflect the same taste for terrifying and repulsive subjects that we see in these later Ekapa'da-Bhairava images.
During the eleventh century, the Ekapada image became less prominent and its position was no longer fixed on the north side of the shrine. With the rise of Vaisnavism at this point, the type appeared more rarely, although it lingered as late as Kosalesvara, probably fourteenth century, in a Saiva context. Occasional small, isolated images of very recent date may continue previous Tantric implications. Throughout their history, Ekapada images do not seem to be geographically limited within Orissa while they first appear in Bhubaneswar, they soon extend to Paikapada' in the west and Mukhalingam in the south, with one tenth-century example from Koisarigarh in the north.
Elsewhere, images of the one-footed god are rare. We have seen a unique example from Rang Mahal in Rajasthan. At least one image each is known from Andhra and Bihar of the ninth-tenth century, probably reflecting an Orissan influence. (One now in the Gaya Museum [80.149] is an early Pala work from a site called Pali near Konch. The second, eastern Calukya, example, is from the temple at Bikkavolu, whereas in Orissa, the image appears as an avarana devata). Some images from relatively late periods in Nepal are mentioned by Krishna Deva in his paper in the present volume. In the south, there are a few Pallava examples roughly contemporary with the earliest in Orissa, but hardly common enough to suggest that this is a source for the tradition to the north. Moreover, the example from Mahabalipuram has three heads, unlike any Orissan image. This apparently prefigures the post-Cola Ekapadatrimurti, a type described in the linga Purana: "The lord who has a single foot, four arms, three eyes, and trident, the lord who is stationed after creating Visnu from his left side and the four faced Brahma from the right side.16 There is no reason, however, to project the aggressively Sivafte theological implications of the southern type into the one-headed images of Orissa.
In fact it is worth dwelling on the point that no satisfactory explanation has been proposed for the significance of the form in Orissa. This is an odd type, even in a world of multiarmed gods, whose proliferating limbs correspond to their multiplying powers. Here we find a reduction from two legs to one, albeit a reduction that in depriving the god of mobility emphasizes another power, his firmness and centrality. The Vedic references mentioned above are few and cryptic, although certainly relevant to later understanding in providing a revered authority.
I fail to see any concrete visual evocation of a solar function, admitting that the static pose, samabhariga (like that of Jagannatha and various other divinities) is indeed similar to that of Surya. Puranic references suggest the Bhairava nature of Ekapada, but by including this figure among sets of Rudras, these references do not seem par¬ticularly germane to the appearance of the image on temples as an avarana devata among other images that are hardly Rudras. Ekapada may be paired with Lakulisa, usually on the opposite side of the shrine, although it is difficult to decide whether the two represent similar ascetic connotations or contrasting ugra and saumya forms. At any rate, this seems to explain the role of the image rather than the selection of the one-legged type. |
| |
|
